journalism

The first memory I have of the name Dr. Philip Jaisohn was as a teenager. I walked into a slightly run-down waiting room and sat, looking curiously about me. It had been awhile since I was in any sort of medical clinic in the U.S., having lived in Seoul for three years now.

“Ah, the waiting rooms still have magazines,” I thought.

I asked my grandmother how she was feeling. “괜찮지 [I’m fine],” she replied, next to me.

Soon she was welcomed by a nurse who addressed her by name, and I saw my grandmother’s dentures flash as she realized she could understand everything the young health professional was saying. This an anomaly for a woman who immigrated to a country where she still didn’t speak the language and had managed to survive as head matriarch of a transplanted and scattered family.

A short time later we left, and I asked my mother, “How is there a Korean hospital in the middle of Philadelphia?”

This week I was honored to emcee the Korean American Lawyers Association of Greater New York (KALAGNY)’s 28th Anniversary Gala Dinner. The theme: The Korean American Experience: 150 Years in the Making, as it recognized what would’ve been the 150th birthday of Dr. Philip Jaisohn, believed to be one of the first Koreans to immigrate to the United States in the 19th century. He was the first Korean to be naturalized as a U.S. citizen, the first Korean to graduate from medical school, went onto marry an American woman, and then later returned to his native soil to demand democracy for the people.

His accomplishments are far-reaching, but knowledge of them is not. At the New York event, one of the evening’s honorees asked the room of 300+ attendees who had heard of Dr. Jaisohn prior to that night. Barely a few dozen raised their hands.

In a conversation with the honoree afterward, he lamented the ignorance, including his own. “Honestly, I didn’t even know of him until I started researching him for my speech,” Young Lee admitted. “Yet how many others still don’t know of this great man?”

Thankfully, there seems to be progress. I was privileged enough to attend a university (go Quakers!) where Korean history classes were an option, leading to my Asian Studies minor.

At UC Riverside, a center devoted to Korean American Studies opened its doors just four years ago. It is named in honor of the only Korean American officer in a mostly Japanese-American Army unit during World War II: Col. Young Oak Kim. Be sure to learn more about him, as my dear friend’s father is the one who researched and brought awareness to this great Asian American advocate’s accomplishments.
Clearly, this is only the beginning.

I’m getting ahead of myself, but these are the conversations I hope to keep having in the next few months. I look forward to these triggers, catalysts, sticking points where I’m forced to stop and self-ask,” Is this where my heart wants to venture forward?”

A good friend of mine sent me this link (thanks Nancy and J!) of a news scrum.*

Whether you know what that is or not (I didn’t), the viewpoints of the contributors are insightful, varied and telling. Please read.

The point of this post is a self-realization: I am not the only journalist to be leaving my field. In fact, the article cites another USA Today reporter who’s left his post for a digital communications firm. Scott Martin’s primary reason is also concern for the direction of journalism. In his case, specifically technology news. Martin writes, “…Social media giants are becoming the new distribution powerhouses and gatekeepers of news as well as the place to put advertising dollars to work,” and as a result, he believes news is indirectly becoming corporate advertising.

My thoughts on journalism’s future are similar, though Martin addresses the introduction of advertising at a level deeper than my thinking.

1. Despite my interest in local news, its audience is diminishing.

2. The demand for viewers leads to efforts to engage the public.

3. Oftentimes these efforts focus on social media.

That timeline seems innocuous. New attitudes, approaches and mindsets are necessary to keep up with society’s changes.

Here’s the problem. With fewer people tuning into their local stations, those newsrooms are making decisions that tend to lean toward the more scandalous, the ones that will grab your attention. They’re also using social media in a way that gets people to tune in. Oftentimes it’s a simple copy/paste and putting the audience’s thoughts on the air.

Is this the right platform for random comments? Is this news? As stations become more desperate for viewers and engagement, I feel there will only be more changes that will not reflect the heart of journalism.

I will say that the current station I’m at does not compromise on many of these things, but I’m looking ahead.

It’s an unusual state-of-mind for me to be in. I generally plan in the short-term. But again, after much prayer, reflection and conversation, I’ve been able to take this leap of faith, leaving a job I love, to find out what else is in store. Stay tuned.

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*I had no idea what a “news scrum” was either. Fast Company describes it as a place where “senior reporters add crucial context and information to a mainstream technology story.”

I took this photo at the end of January. Trees – in case you didn’t know – don’t grow sideways. Yet this one ended up parallel to the earth that gave it life, going against the direction of all the other trees.

I took this photo thinking of me.

This was a day spent in prayer and reflection, in praise and in apprehension. It’s when I decided I was going to run counter to what was expected of me and leave the field of journalism for now.

So there’s the announcement. After years of reporting, anchoring, producing and informing, I’ve decided it’s time to step away to see the people I love, explore other paths I may be passionate about and challenge myself in ways I haven’t in the past.

There are multiple reasons for this. Among them, the fact that I’ve said no to many opportunities, events and moments in an effort to say yes to a career. I’m also sensing a growing concern about the direction that local broadcast news is headed. If you’d like to chat more, feel free to ask.

Back to reality though. This means in June, I’ll be leaving Albany. For a few months, I will be roaming my home countries and a few others while searching for my next landing place.

For those of you who have been a part of this journey with me, I can’t thank you enough. You’ve been by my side at career fairs, stayed up with me until midnight or woken up at 3 a.m. with me, juggled my strange weekends, visited me in cities you never thought you’d be in.

oh, how I miss this

my family, my rock

Most importantly, you’ve believed in me, especially in moments when I lacked faith in myself. Thanks to you, I’ve learned, grown, and become so much closer to the journalist I wanted to be.

Salisbury, Md. [WMDT]

NYS Fair, Syracuse [YNN]

Reporting [now TWC News]

Just as that wayward tree is being held up by the other upstanding ones, you carry me.

Now I’m going to note there is a hashtag to follow what I’m about to say next. teehee.

I’ve spent many a year telling myself ‘no.’ Whether it been a denial of sleep, denial of free time, denial of relationships and/or denial of travel, I’ve made these choices to move forward in my career. However, I hope this is the start to being able to say ‘yes’ to some of these things.

Hi, I’m in Argentina. In the Southern Hemisphere! Me!

More posts to come. In the meantime, follow me on Twitter or Instagram (and of course, #innaefarawayplace). Ah, the beauty of hashtags.

It’s funny how a town you’ve never been to can grow on you within a few days. Five, in fact.

Last Tuesday, I was startled to read that a hospital in North Adams, Mass., was abruptly closing in just three days.

Starting on Wednesday, I began to meet the hundreds of people who didn’t know what their future would look like. They told me their town of 13 and half thousand people would not survive without North Adams Regional Hospital (NARH). I met the daughter who moved within walking distance of the facility to ensure her mother, her children, and she would have immediate access to health care. And I joked with the Mayor who showed shock in his eyes but fearlessness in his words as he promised to do whatever he could to bring the hospital back.

And I kept at it for the next four (work)days.

Each day came with its own burdens, hurdles and stress. Daily, sometime in the mid-afternoon, there would be a late-breaking development. For a reporter who’s off the clock at 6 p.m., any news at 3 or 4 o’clock when it takes over an hour to travel is not welcome news. This led to late hours, extreme hustling to meet deadlines, and getting the necessary news out.

I was there a lot.

As exhausting as it was to make the drive daily (the trip from Albany to North Adams was at least an hour and 10 minutes), I came to welcome these views as I crossed the Taconic Mountains from the Empire State to the Bay one.

It meant, that after all the winding, the bumps, the steep precipices, the curves beyond which I couldn’t see… there would be a city that I could try to help through my work.

It meant that I would soon start recognizing certain landmarks and towns.

It meant that I could give one of the recently unemployed leaders of the Massachusetts Nursing Union a hug.

It meant that I could stop by City Hall and get a heart-to-heart from Mayor Alcombright.

It meant that I would head down Main Street to pick up a muffin from Luma’s Muffin and Mug.

Today I consumed more dairy than my stomach will be able to handle come tomorrow. Until then, here I am.

That’s right. Hello!

Yes, I’m just as surprised as you are that the itch to write has returned. I’ve always loved writing, but as it turns out, my insecurity prevents me from doing it. That and a busy social calendar that I inevitably schedule and regret.

You may not have known I was covering it because I didn’t appear on television it. Twitter gave me away.

There are so many thoughts that could be scrawled on this screen right now. They range from:

1. The moments that made me bite my lip to keep the tears at bay. I was unsuccessful.

2. “Closure”

3. The justice system

Maybe I’ll get to those. Maybe I won’t. This post is for hope.

4. Social media positivity

Thanks to my news director, I know I tweeted at least 70 times throughout the day. My handy smartphone notified me of every time someone RTed or favorited my 140 characters.

My tweet with the widest online ‘footprint’?

12.5.2013 1:55 p.m.

There is so much pain in this story. I am unable to fathom what it is like to lose a child, sister, brother, significant other or friend. There are many still grieving and trying to pick up the pieces of the lives that once were. Others are leaving them behind, understanding the future will have to look nothing like what they hoped for.

Yet enough people found these words describing a beautiful girl and her beautiful heart worth noting.

Is there anger behind those words? Possibly.

Is there full healing in the heart that loved her? Not yet.

But in <140 characters a young man articulated what was so worth loving about Deanna Rivers, and tweeters knew they had to respond. Whether they knew her or not, this is what’s worth remembering.

There are many perks to this business. Every day is different. You get to meet new people who tell you stories you couldn’t have even dreamt up. Once in awhile, people tell you they recognize you and/or they tell you that you’re doing a wonderful job (this actually doesn’t happen as often as you’d think).

However, one of the downsides… is the frequency of these words:

Good-bye!

Good luck!

In life, we all have our shares of farewells. For some reason, professional good-byes seem to cut more deeply in the news biz than in other ones.

Reasons why they happen so frequently:

– Contracts end every few years

– Poor ratings mean less revenue, which could mean cut positions

– It’s a grueling line of work, and people leave the field

– And IF you believe the saying, TV news is a dying business

Now factors as to why these departures are felt so strongly:

– The stress often creates stronger bonds

– New gigs usually are far away. At least 2 hours, because it’s in a different DMA from you

– The unusual work hours mean you are the only people who have the most random days off

Case in point: 5 people who watched a movie at 3:30 PM on a Wednesday. Movie Club is born.

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I write this post because in just the past month, a few dear friends have moved on to wonderful new jobs, but those jobs have taken them further away from me.

Casey McNulty just landed an incredible role as a producer in Boston. The offer came just over two weeks ago, and she leaves tomorrow.

While I have so much joy for these friends/former colleagues, it is hard to know that our friendships will have to remain long-distance. At the same time, I can’t bemoan their success and their future endeavors.

Guess that means I’ll have to make my way to the Buckeye State or plan a night out at the Raleigh Times. I’ve already scoped out some places in Boston, Casey!